Khyree Jackson’s parting words as he left a Fourth of July cookout hosted by Deonte Banks’ family sounded like a promise.
“See you Week 1,” Jackson told Banks, looking forward to a Giants-Vikings season-opener when the two young cornerbacks could shine for opposing teams.
About 30 hours later, Jackson, a 24-year-old Vikings rookie, died in a car crash on a Maryland highway.
Isaiah Hazel, Banks’ former roommate at the University of Maryland, was driving passengers Jackson and Anthony Lytton Jr. when their vehicle was struck by a speeding car changing lanes and veered off the road into multiple tree stumps, police said.
All three men were killed in the early morning hours of July 6.
“Somebody called me and I just woke up to it,” a somber Banks told The Post in the Giants’ locker room after practice. “When I first heard, I hopped straight up. I was like, ‘There ain’t no way.’ You don’t really feel it the same unless you were just with them. It was a shocker because now they are really gone.”
The Sept. 8 Giants-Vikings game at MetLife Stadium was supposed to mark Jackson’s NFL debut and Banks’ stiffest test — covering All-Pro receiver Justin Jefferson — since being entrusted as the No. 1 cornerback midway through his 2023 rookie season.
Whether they would have crossed paths before or during the game is unknown, but a postgame hug would have happened no matter the final score.
“When it’s game time, I’m locked in, and I don’t really think about anything else other than my task at hand,” Banks said. “But we would’ve chopped it up after the game. That’s probably when it will hit me.”
Banks, 23, first met Jackson and Lytton through Hazel and quickly became part of their group. They all had grown up just 90 minutes apart on opposite ends of Baltimore.
“Zay could light up a room. That boy’s so funny,” Banks said. “And Khyree was always a cool dude. ‘See you Week 1’ was the last thing he said to me. He would’ve had a great career in the NFL.”
The Giants drafted Banks with the No. 24-overall pick in the 2023 draft — just as Jackson (Oregon), Hazel (Charlotte) and Lytton Jr. (Bowie State) were settling in for their final college seasons. Football was a bond that traveled with them to Las Vegas in June to see the “Tank” Davis-Frank Martin boxing match at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
And football was the holiday topic of conversation a few weeks later as Banks’ father worked the grill, fireworks filled the sky and everybody had a “great night.”
“Cherish the moments you have with people,” Banks said. “I’m starting to feel more like, ‘Don’t hold grudges.’ Life really is too short.”
Vikings players will wear helmet decals with the initials K.J. throughout the upcoming season, and coaches and staff will have the opportunity to wear a pin with the same design.
A patch of grass on the practice field was painted purple and yellow to encircle Jackson’s No. 31 during training camp. His number and his locker at the team facility will remain unused in 2024.
Words that Jackson said on a pre-draft visit to the Vikings will stay with general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.
“He said, ‘Kwesi, there’s no wishes in this life. You get out of life what you put into it,’ ” Adofo-Mensah recalled last month.
Banks hasn’t yet decided if he will do anything out of the ordinary to recognize Jackson on game day, but he wears a shirt with all three faces on it that was given to him after the tragic accident.
A July 13 vigil to remember the three fallen former high school teammates turned ugly when a shooting at the scene left one man dead and one woman injured.
Banks might have been in the crowd if he had not already returned to New Jersey to prepare for training camp.
“Those were my guys,” said Banks, who has become too accustomed to losing friends at a young age. “Where I come from, [death] is kind of like a thing that happens. Baltimore is not really a city where kids live their whole lives.”
Banks made it out, is fulfilling a dream and has his whole NFL career ahead of him.
He won’t forget the fun times he shared with Jackson, Hazel and Lytton. And he won’t look past the next game that four friends all should be trading text messages about right now.
“It doesn’t feel right,” Banks said. “It feels crazy.”
